Today
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African-American English
Ideology and conceptions of a standard in NAmE
History and Structure
Smitherman
History of the debate
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Issues in the Ebonics Debate
Topics bearing on discussion of AAE:
(1.) relation to comparable Anglo-American varieties
(2.) historical roots and development
Questions appearing in the media:
Is it a language (like Chinese or French?)
Is it a valid dialect (like British English or Singaporean English?)
Or, is it street slang?
Responses and comments made in answer to these questions:
Is it a problem that blacks don’t talk like other Americans?
Is my child going to be negatively affected by being around black speakers?
Do you believe in Ebonics?
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History and Development of
AAE
Rickford, J. & Rickford, R. (2000) Spoken Soul. Johnathan Wiley
The debate: Creole origins or English origins?
17th century: slaves were brought from Western Africa (Guinea
Coast/Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone) and previously-established British
colonies, particularly in Barbados and Jamaica.
•Native African languages included: Wolof, Mandingo, Hausa.
•Likely West African Pidgin English (WAPE) developed in the “Middle
passage”, precursor to a creole spoken by slaves transported to Virginia and
South Carolina colonies (evidence, e.g., Gullah Creole)
•AAE did not remain a creole for long, because (unlike in the Caribbean where
creoles remained the first languages of most of the population), African slaves
in the US South had significantly greater contact with English speakers.
1690: Jamaica = 75% African
Virginia = 5%
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History and Development of
AAE
18th century: Three groups of speakers among the slaves:
(1) Those
learning English of their masters, (2) Native-born field workers who spoke the
creole, (3) Recent imports from Africa, some of whom spoke a Caribbean
creole.
19th century: Legal slaving ends; illegal trade continues, particularly in the
South Coastal U.S. Slaves are transported across state lines. Inventions, such as
the cotton gin, increased the interest in bringing in more slaves to work cotton
fields.
1790: 700,000 slaves
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1860: 4 million
20th century: “Great Migration” from the South to the West (CA, WA),
explaining similarities between AAE in the South and West. Migrated to areas
with segregated housing and schools.
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Ideology and AAE: what’s in a
name?
•Non-standard Negro English (NNE) - 1950’s
•Black Vernacular English (BVE) - 1960’s
•Black English Vernacular (BEV) - 1970’s, 80’s
•African-American Vernacular English - (AAVE)
late 1980’s, early 90’s
•African-American English
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AAE: what’s in a name?
•Non-standard Negro English (NNE) - 1950’s
•Black Vernacular English (BVE) - 1960’s
•Ebonics - 1960’s
•Black English Vernacular (BEV) - 1970’s, 80’s
•African-American Vernacular English - (AAVE)
late 1980’s, early 90’s
•Ebonics -1996-7
•African-American English (AAE) - present
•Spoken Soul - literary - Claude Brown, author
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AAE: Rulings and Resolutions
Rulings:
Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School
Children, et al., vs. Ann Arbor School
District Board (1979, District Court, Judge
C. Joiner)
Resolution:
Linguistic Society of America (1997)
http://www.lsadc.org/info/ling-faqs-ebonics.cfm
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Issues in the Debate
1996: Oakland (CA) Unified School District Board resolution
Some key passages:
1. “…recognize the existence and the cultural and historic bases of West
and Niger-Congo African Language Systems, and these are the
language patterns that many African American students bring to
school.”
Popular interpretation: Ebonics is an African language.
Linguistic understanding: Language varieties typically incorporate items
from other language sources in the formation of a new dialect or
sociolect. Ebonics has traces of a creole language, and Anglo varieties
of English.
•Issue: chasm developed between popular language beliefs and professional, technical
knowledge in the description and analysis of human language.
•Issue: ideology shapes our thinking about language issues.
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Issues in the Debate
1996: Oakland (CA) Unified School District Board resolution
Some key passages:
2. “Implement the best possible academic program for the combined purposes of
facilitating the acquisition of and mastery of English language skills, while respecting
and embracing the legitimacy and richness of the language patterns whether they are
known as “Ebonics,” “African Language Systems,…”
Popular interpretation: students will be taught in Ebonics, and teachers will
be taught to use Ebonics in instruction.
Linguistic understanding: In teaching General American English, students’
community dialect should be respected. Understanding how they work will
help teachers “take students from where they are to where they need to go.”
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Standard Language Ideology
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Standard Language Ideology: Socially-constructed notion of the nature, boundaries,
etc. of a language; particularly of a “standard” variety of a language, supported by
social sanction. Sanctions provide a rationale for codification, elaboration, and
prescriptive norms.
(Woolard, 1991; Silverstein 1992, 1995; Gal and Irvine, 1995; Lippi-Green, 1997;
Irvine and Gal 2000; Milroy, 2000)
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Much sociolinguistic research assumes a direct correlation between a linguistic
feature and a social characteristic. Silverstein (1992, 1995) refers to this direct
correlation as first-order indexicality
Indexicality -- ability of a form to stand in an emblematic relation
First-order indexicality --- The association of a linguistic form or variety with a social group, e.g., “such
and suches use form X while so and so’s use form Y”.
-- Ideology constitutes a system for making sense of the indexicality in
language
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Language Ideology
Second-order indexicality –
-- any reasoning that interprets such a presuppositional relationship –
“is potentially an ideological one rationalizing the indexical value of the forms
in terms of schemata of social differentiation and classification that are
independent of the usages at issue.” (Silverstein, 1992:316)
-- "the noticing (overt or covert), discussion and rationalization" of basic first-order
indexicality (Milroy, 2000)
 “correlation is in fact mediated by an ideological interpretation of the meaning of
language use” (Woolard, 1992:242)
second-order indexicality refers to the reactions of speakers to first-order indexicality
and these reactions, viewed as manifestations of ideological stances, are evident
both in language behavior (hypercorrection, style shifting) and in overt comment
about language and, we suggest, about other social phenomena as well.
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Language Ideology
Application
First-order indexicality –
The association of a linguistic form or variety with a social group, e.g.,
“such and suches use form X while so and so’s use form Y”.
Class I Argentinian speakers show 68% prepausal /s/-deletion in
casual speech, while Class VI speakers show 14%.
Second-order indexicality-Class I Argentinian speakers show higher frequency of nonstandard productions…sound lower class…sound uneducated
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Two Theories of AAE Origin
Creolist Hypothesis
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AAE developed from a creole
language
slaves brought linguistic experience
with West African languages
a “Plantation Creole” developed in
antebellum south, shows similarities to
Krio (Sierra Leone), and West Indian
Creoles
Creole vestiges are apparent in Gullah
Creole (South Sea Isles of SC, GA,
USA)
Plantation Creole used widely among
slaves, but not whites
Anglicist Hypothesis
 AAE developed from British
English
 slaves’ language experience and a
“Plantation Creole” contributed
very little to language in the US
south
 slaves’ task: learning English of
their white slaveowners
 Gullah Creole is an anomaly
 dialect features of AAE must have
once been present in other US
dialects
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Two Theories of AAE Origin, cont.
Creolist Hypothesis
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ex-slave narratives provide a clue
“pro” Plantation Creole
AAVE is not a creole itself, but
descended from one
Current consensus among
sociolinguists
Anglicist Hypothesis
 ex-slave narratives show only
minor differences
 small farm vs. sprawling
plantation problem
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Linguistic Features of AAE
Syntax
(1.) Double negatives: e.g., He don't know nothing.
(also, Spanish: Él no sabe nada.)
(2.) Zero Copula: "to be" verbs only in the same environments in which they are
contracted in MAE (Mainstream American English)
e.g.,
He late. - Predicate Adj.
He a doctor. - Full NP
They ø running. - VP
He at home. - LOC (locative)
(3.) Habitual “be”: to indicate durative quality.
e.g.,
He be late.
She don’t usually be there.
(4) Future “be”: to indicate future state ("will").
e.g.,
If I be living that long, I will move there.
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Linguistic Features of AAE
Syntax
(5.) Remote time expressed by phonologically stressed “been” to mark action or state
completed long ago but still relevant
e.g.,
You been paid your dues.
(6.) Regularization of third person singular past tense of the verb
e.g.,
She walk to the store.
She raise her grades this semester.
Phonology:
(1.) (t,d) deletion in consonant clusters when followed by vowel-initial morpheme
e.g.,
lif’ up the latch.
That child is bussin’ out of his clothes.
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Linguistic Features of AAE
Phonology, cont.
(1) Postvocalic (r)-deletion: /®/-less everywhere except preceding a vowel.
e.g., guard, god /ga:d/
nor, gnaw /na:/
(also, Boston, New York, Charleston; Southern UK)
(2) L-deletion: /l/ deleted word-finally, or before a labial consonant
e.g., toll, toe /to:/
help /hEp/
*but never "hell" /hE/
(3) Consonant cluster simplification: reduce cluster to single consonant in
environment of another alveolar sound /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/
e.g., meant~mend /mEn/
pent~penned /pEn/
*applies with lower frequency when final alveolar is a past tense morpheme, e.g.,
paste (n.) /pes/, but chased (v.) /tSest/
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Linguistic Features of AAE
Phonology, cont.
(4) Pin~pen merger (also, Southern US, elsewhere)
(5) Interdental fricative replacement: replace interdental /T,D/ with
labiodental /f,v/ (also, Cockney English)
e.g., Ruth~roof /®uf/
brother /b®√v®/
Discourse Features (Smitherman)
(1) Call and Response
(2) Signifying
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